Artist 11: Damien Hirst

This artist is very interesting. It appears most of his works are sculpture, but their ideas would be similar also in drawing or painting, the 3D aspect simply magnifies their intensity and interest ten fold. Some, admittedly, are rather, well, I don't want to say "odd" but I will. Putting dead animals in formaldehyde (sharks, livestock, etc) is strange, yet really, once I think about it, what is more beautiful and artistic than God's own creation in nature? Whether that was intended from Hirst or not is...not important to me. I believe his formaldehyde creations allow one to focus on what is beautiful in nature first, which most really pass by without a second thought.

One of my favorite pieces, "For the Love of God," is a platinum cast of an 18th century skull which was covered in 8,601 diamonds (Wow! Diamonds are a girl's best friend, what girl wouldn't want that for a gift, I know I would. :P) From looking at some of his work, he seems to center on death (mostly dead animals) and the human body, including the inner workings of it, some sculptures being of people with pieces of their skin peeled back to reveal muscles and more. As mentioned before, I love skulls. Ok I'm not sure if I really mentioned it on here but if you don't know that now then you haven't been paying attention! :) This is one example of someone taking something that has already been done, and putting a personal and unique spin on it, making it it's own unique and mesmerizing piece.

Just a quick history of Hirst, he was born in 1965 in England and was part of a group called "Young British Artists" which were very popular in the 1990's. He is also known to do spin art, something that I have been a fan of since I was little. They are easy to do and they look amazing. On top of that because of the technique used to create them it is impossible to create the same one twice. The one pictured to the right is "Beautiful Axe, Slash, Gosh Painting." With so many different styles to his work, sculpture, dead animals, spin art, all which are well done in my humble opinion, Hirst is said to be the richest living artist to date. Which proves you need to go into controversial territory and push the envelope of what has already been done if you want to get anywhere.